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Yarram and Port Albert.
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Yarram is a charming small country town providing services to the rural community. It is where the locals buy and sell their livestock, obtain their supplies, meet to exchange news and to share the joys and tribulations of life. While enjoying all the amenities generated by being the centre of a bountiful primary production area, Yarram retains much of the charm of yesterday. Local industry is mostly related to dairy, beef and timber production. Being a compact town of only 2000 people virtually everything is within walking distance of everything else. Rosewood on the Southern town boundary is but a comfortable 20min stroll removed from the town centre where coffee and cakes await the holiday maker. A town tour should include the botanic gardens of which the community is justly proud. Those who explore the side streets will appreciate the many lovingly maintained older style houses nestled in their beautifully kept gardens. Yarram people are garden people. Yarram was originally known as Yarram Yarram a name derived from an expression in the local aboriginal language to indicate plenty of water or perhaps, more literally swamp or marshlands. This would be appropriate as that is what the district was before it was drained to create a farming industry soundly based on one of the world’s most productive soils. Some of the older buildings in town include the Court House, the Regent Theatre (1928), the old hotel, built in 1912 and more recently renovated as a government office, and "Hawthorn Bank" on Pound Road, an early and intact wattle-and-daub cottage, although the original shingled roof has been replaced with iron. For the tourist much of Yarram’s attraction is in what it is not. The town is not on a main through route to anywhere so the traffic is relatively quiet, it is not a seething metropolis rather a serene place to escape from the stress and the hectic pace of modern city life. Yarram is however an excellent, well sited and convenient base from which to launch day trips to many and varied tourist sites. For recreational fisher folk there are boat ramps, hire and charter boats at nearby Port Albert. At the close of a day’s fishing or touring there is nothing better than to watch the sun go down from the fore shore at Port Albert while enjoying the local and world renown speciality of fish and chips. Just to the south of Yarram at the tiny historic townships of Alberton and Tarraville they are two of the oldest settlements in Victoria and feature some striking historical architecture. The Yarram Golf course with its resident population of kangaroos and magnificent stands of old mountain ash trees is well worth a visit by those who enjoy the magnificence of nature as well as by the serious or recreational golfer. The course also features large numbers of the plants known as 'black boys'or 'grass trees'. It is said that these unusual plants only grow 30 cm each century. Horse riding, boating and bushwalking can all be enjoyed in the vicinity and the Tarra festival is held each Easter. Promway Horse-Drawn Wagons hire out well-equipped gypsy-style wagons for a more leisurely exploration of the area (03 5182 6119). Swimming and surf fishing are popular at McLoughlin's Beach, located on a sheltered inlet, 18 km south. Tarra-Bulga National Park To the north-west of Yarram lies the Tarra-Bulga National Park, probably the main attraction in the area. 'Bulga' is an Aboriginal word, meaning 'high place' or 'mountain' and the word 'Tarra' comes from Strzelecki's Aboriginal guide, Charlie Tarra. This relatively small remnant of the original Gippsland forest provides some insight into the type of vegetation which once covered the Strzelecki Ranges, much of which was cleared in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century. The more rugged and elevated land and the steeper slopes in the eastern sections created difficulties which drove many second-generation farmers off their parents' lands, particularly during World War I. |
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